Supporting inclusive language through automation

In 2015, General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS) created “Inclusion Bot” to help staff use more inclusive and thoughtful language in everyday communications.

Over time, the team found this bot could use some improvements. So starting in 2019, they began conducting research and iterating on the bot to further their goal of a welcoming, inclusive culture.

This event is best suited for: Communicators at all levels of experience, from beginners to experts.

In this session, you’ll learn how to:

• Use technology to promote more inclusive language in the workplace.
• Establish a common language and clear workplace expectations.
• Build a shared understanding of concepts, values, and norms that are essential in building inclusive teams.
• Implement inclusive automation.
• Make iterative improvements to inclusion automation, including the words that trigger a reminder.

Resources

• Hacking inclusion: How we customized a bot to gently correct people who use the word ‘guys’ (2016)
• Improving inclusion, continuously: how we iterated on our bot to promote more inclusive and thoughtful language (2022)
• Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce

The Communicators Community of Practice is a group of federal employees from different agencies and specialties who support the use of clear communication in government writing. Join the Communicators Community